‘Radical’ GCSE replacement English Baccalaureate Certificate unveiled

A ‘radical’ overhaul of school exams has been announced by education secretary Michael Gove, with GCSEs to be scrapped within four years and replaced by new tougher English Baccalaureate Certificate (EBacc) qualifications.

Students will sit the new exams from 2017 (Picture: PA)

Mr Gove, who finalised the new exam system with deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, said the EBaccs would see the retaking of modules scrapped and a reliance on coursework reduced to be replaced with tough end-of-year exams that students of all abilities would take.

The new exams represent the biggest change to school qualifications since the two-tier system of O-levels and CSEs was replaced by GCSEs.

The ‘near universal qualification’ in English, maths and science will begin in September 2015, with the first pupils receiving EBacc rather than GCSE qualifications in 2017, while exams in history, geography and languages will follow.

Michael Gove said the new exams were a reaction to the ‘dumbing down’ of school qualifications (Picture: PA)

‘We need a new set of exams for students at the age of 16 – qualifications which are more rigorous and more stretching for the able, but which will ensure the majority of children can flourish and achieve their full potential,’ Mr Gove and Mr Clegg wrote in the Evening Standard.

In a bid to tackle the ‘race to the bottom’ of exam boards attempting to have the highest pass rates by making exams easier, there will only be one exam board for each subject under EBaccs, Mr Gove added.

He said the new EBaccs would ‘tackle grade inflation and dumbing down’, but Labour attacked the coalition’s plans as marking a return to the 1980s.

‘Schools do need to change as all children stay on in education to 18 and we face up to the challenges of the 21st century,’ he said. ‘We won’t achieve that with a return to the 1980s.’

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, said the new exams were ‘entirely driven by political ideology’ rather than in the best interests of young children, arguing that ministers had effectively publicly denounced students taking GCSEs up until 2016.

Martin Johnson, deputy general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, added: ‘This is an insult to the nation’s children who will have to live with the consequences if the crackpot ideas are implemented.’